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Plan Increases Role of G.I.’s in Iraq Training

Iraqi Army soldiers searched a marsh in Mosul for weapons during a joint United States-Iraq mission last month.Credit
Scott Nelson/World Picture Network for The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 — With violence in Iraq on the decline and a quarter of American combat brigades scheduled to leave by July, commanders plan to give the remaining brigades an expanded role in training and supporting Iraqi forces, according to officials involved in a confidential military review of the next phase of the American troop deployment.

The plan, not yet in final form, is intended to transfer more of the security burden in Iraq to the Iraqis without giving up the gains that the Americans have made in recent months in pacifying the most violent areas and weakening the Sunni insurgency.

The approach is strikingly different from the plans advocated by many United States politicians, including some Democratic presidential contenders, who have called for a rapid withdrawal of American combat brigades from Iraq — the very units that American commanders see as playing a central role in the transition toward Iraqi control.

It is intended to supplement the longstanding American efforts to recruit, equip and advise Iraqi forces by strengthening their ability to deal with a diverse array of threats. The plan also reflects the vision of American commanders of the evolving role of American combat units after President Bush’s troop reinforcement plan runs its course next summer.

Under the approach, some American combat brigades due to stay behind would slim down their fighting forces and enlarge the teams mentoring Iraqis. Within a 3,000-member brigade, for example, one or two battalions might help train the Iraqis while the rest would be retained as quick-reaction forces to back up the Iraqis if they ran into stiff resistance.

The precise arrangements would vary depending on the threats and the quality of Iraqi forces in specific regions, and brigade commanders would have considerable leeway in deciding how many soldiers to commit to mentoring. But the shift toward training would be gradual, reflecting what commanders say have been lessons learned from the failure of earlier, overhasty efforts to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis.

Even after President Bush’s “surge” of troops is over in mid-July and the number of brigades shrinks to 15 from the current level of 20, American units in some of the more highly contested areas would continue their combat roles. That is based on an assessment that the situation in Iraq is too uncertain and the Iraqi security forces in many areas too unsteady for an abrupt transfer of responsibilities.

The proposal for a new mix of forces is part of a broad review of the projected American military posture in Iraq for a phase that would begin in the second part of 2008. No final decisions have been made on the pace of further reductions or the details of how the plan would be carried out in Iraq. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, has told Congress that he will not issue new recommendations until March after an assessment of conditions. The basic approach, however, has begun to emerge.

“The White House has been informed conceptually,” said one senior Bush administration official, referring to planning. “Fundamentally, this concept is not going to change.”

Transferring security to the Iraqis was at the core of the initial United States strategy in Iraq. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., General Petraeus’s predecessor as Iraq commander, voiced optimism last year that the Iraqi military and police might be just 12 to 18 months from assuming the main responsibility.

But efforts to quickly transfer authority often backfired. In Diyala Province, for example, Iraqi Army commanders carried out a sectarian agenda, detaining local Sunni leaders whom American commanders were trying to engage, and failing to curb the inroads made by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a largely Iraqi insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership. After much of Baquba, the provincial capital, fell under insurgent control, the American military was forced to mount an offensive in June to reclaim the city.

American military officials assert that the situation has changed, which may make it easier for the Iraqi forces to assume more of a security role. Partly as a result of the American troop reinforcements and a new counterinsurgency strategy, violence has subsided, making security more manageable. Many Sunnis now reject Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and thousands have volunteered in local neighborhood watch organizations.

In addition, the Iraqi military is expanding. It is creating three new divisions, including the 11th Iraqi Army Division to be established in Baghdad over the next several months. That unit will enable nine battalions sent to the capital from other regions to return home, strengthening the Iraqi military presence in those areas.

All told, the number of Iraqi soldiers is to grow from almost 200,000 by year’s end to 255,000 by the end of 2008. “The Iraqis have been able to recruit and fill to capacity,” said Brig. Gen. Robin Swan, who oversees the training of the Iraq Army.

In Mosul, only a single battalion of American troops — in concert with a large number of Iraqi soldiers and police officers — helps provide security for a city of more than a million. Still, considerable challenges remain. The Iraqi Army has only about half the noncommissioned officers it needs. Another important weakness, said Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, who recently completed his tour as the senior American commander in northern Iraq, is that Iraqi military training has been focused on developing the skills of individual soldiers, not on fighting as a unit.

“They don’t have a collective training program right now,” General Mixon said in an interview. “They put a jundi out there and the way he learns to fight is by getting shot at,” he added, using the Iraqi term for a soldier.

Some experts also remain skeptical that a largely Shiite army and police force can ever reliably enforce the peace equitably if American forces rapidly draw down. “The binding constraint is sectarian politics,” Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.

American officers acknowledge the problems but assert that progress can be made if the United States does not rush the process.

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“Don’t do it too fast,” said Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, who oversees the training of Iraq’s security forces. “Transfer those responsibilities that you can to the organizations that can handle them and withhold responsibility from organizations that can’t.”

A number of efforts are under way to improve the training and quality of Iraqi forces. A national network of training centers is being expanded to train Iraqi units near their home areas. To address the shortage of noncommissioned officers in the army, 10 percent of the most promising recruits are being promoted to corporals while efforts are being made to encourage former army officers to rejoin.

A chronic shortage of officers also afflicts the Iraqi police, which is no small problem since only officers are authorized to make arrests. Two new police academies are to be established, and the normal three-year training program is being shortened for college graduates. The Americans are also trying to adjust the sectarian balance of the Iraqi police by pressing the Iraqi government to recruit more Sunnis, though such efforts have been frustrated in some areas like Diyala Province.

Teams of American advisers are working with the Iraqi Defense and Interior Ministries in an attempt to improve their ability to manage and sustain the force.

American combat brigades, however, are to play a key role in augmenting the training and encouraging Iraqi units in the field to take more responsibility. Advocates of the plan say that brigades are well suited for this mission.

Many brigade commanders have done multiple tours in Iraq, giving them considerable experience in dealing with local leaders, Iraqi forces and the diverse spectrum of threats. The commanders have an array of abilities to draw on. In addition to directing infantry units, they can order air and artillery strikes, arrange for medical evacuations and access a broad selection of intelligence.

Brigades oversee the small 11-to-15-member advisory teams that work with the Iraqi Army and the police. The State Department’s provincial reconstruction teams, which advise the Iraqis on economic projects and ways to improve local governments, are also attached to combat brigades.

An American official said that each brigade commander would be allowed to decide how many soldiers to assign to expanded training and advising efforts, when American forces should carry out military operations and when they should stand back and let Iraqi forces take the lead.

The approach is already being tried in some areas like Falluja, where Marine squads have taken up positions in police stations while other combat forces have been removed from the city.

“You enable brigade commanders and then decentralize authority to him to take account of conditions on the ground,” the official said. “He can set the dials on how much the U.S. is in the lead, how much you teach the Iraqis to do and how much you can simply back up the Iraqis.”

In some areas, the commanders might allocate an entire battalion to augment training efforts. In others, one company in the battalion might focus on training while the remaining companies carry out combat operations with the Iraqis.

The type of training could vary. General Mixon, for example, said that a brigade might concentrate on collective training: teaching Iraq platoons and companies to fight effectively as units. The brigade commanders, officials say, are in the best position to evaluate the threats in their areas, the abilities of the Iraqi forces they work with and the local political situation. Previous efforts to shift responsibility to the Iraqis faltered in part because the efforts were influenced by American officials too removed from the battlefield, officials say.

“We had too-centralized this process a couple of years ago when we were in the transition business,” the senior official added. “We got it wrong in too many local places like Diyala and segments of Baghdad.”

This approach differs from proposals by some counterinsurgency experts, like Lt. Col. John Nagl, that the Army establish a permanent corps of highly trained advisers and use it as the principal means to train Iraqi and foreign forces elsewhere.

It is also radically different from that advocated by some foreign policy specialists, who have urged the United States to quickly withdraw combat brigades while leaving behind a limited number of trainers. Such a strategy was outlined by the Iraq Study Group, a panel led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton, and a variant of this approach has been embraced by Senator Barack Obama in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The rancorous debate in Washington has centered on troop withdrawal schedules. But the American command’s planning suggests less public but equally fundamental differences over the military structures that the generals say are needed to manage the transition toward Iraqi control.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: INCREASED ROLE SOUGHT FOR G.I.’S IN IRAQ TRAINING. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe